ness, from which it will be morally impossible for you to revolt. If therefore you would secure your perseverance to the end, beware you do not limit yourselves in the way; for though if you die but just sincerely good, you shall certainly escape hell; yet in all probability you will not be long sincerely good, unless you be something more; that is, unless you proceed in the degrees of virtue, and do more and more suppress your evil and improve your good dispositions and inclinations. For so long as there remains in you any lust to evil, you will be in danger of being betrayed by it; and the stronger that lust is, the more it threatens your destruction. So that you can never be safe, so long as you have an enemy alive in your breast; and whilst you rest in any attainment on this side the confirmed state of virtue, in which there is an utter extinction of all evil inclinations, you are more or less in danger, proportionably as you are more or less distant from that happy period.

VII. To our final perseverance, it is also necessary that we should frequently entertain ourselves with the prospect of our mortality, and endeavour to compose ourselves beforehand into a good posture of dying. For thus we are called upon in this our militant state, to consider our latter end, Deut. xxxii. 29. and by the examples of the best men are invited to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom, Psalm xc. 12. and to wait till our change comes, Job xiv. 14. to which end we are put in mind, that here we have no abiding city, Heb. xiii. 14. and that it is appointed for all men once to die, Heb. ix. 27. and that our life is even as a vapour, that appears for a little time, and then va

nishes away, James iv. 14. and to this purpose the apostle applies this consideration, 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30, 31. Now this I say, brethren, that is, of our abode and continuance here, (upon which he exhorts us to compose ourselves to a great indifferency as to the things of this world,) it remains that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passes away: i. e. Since your time is here very short, endeavour beforehand to loosen yourselves from this world, and to put yourselves into a fit posture of leaving it; for it is but a short scene that will quickly be shifted, and then there will an eternal state of things succeed.

And indeed, since to die well is the last act and final consummation of our Christian warfare, it must needs highly concern us to arm and prepare ourselves for it beforehand, lest we lose the blessed prize, by stumbling just at the goal, and after a long voyage miscarry for ever within sight of harbour. For in the hour of death, we throw our last cast for an eternity of happiness or misery; and how much we are concerned to throw that well, upon which so vast a stake depends! O it is a serious thing to die; to pass this dark entry of eternity, through which, as we go, right or wrong, we are made or undone for ever. For to carry us right through, it is not a few death-bed sorrows or good wishes, a few extorted promises or forced resolutions, or frightful prayers, or "Lord have mercy upon us," will serve the turn; O no! it is an expensive passage, which we shall

never be able to defray, unless we carry along with us a large stock of spiritual preparations. We shall have need of a strong and active faith; of a mind well furnished with wise considerations; of a deep, a large, and a tried repentance; an unrestrained charity; a confirmed patience; a profound submission to the will of God; and a well-grounded hope of a blessed eternity. For without all these together, we shall be very ill-accoutred to die, and run a dreadful hazard of miscarrying for ever. And these are such things as do not usually spring up like mushrooms in a night, or in the few disturbed moments of a dying time, but do ask a much larger and serener season to grow and ripen in. So that if we mean to die well, and so come off victoriously in this last act of our spiritual warfare, we must now, while we are well, be frequently entertaining our meditations in the charnel-house, and read lectures to ourselves upon the skeletons and death-heads there, those emblems and representations of our approaching mortality; and from them take such lively pictures of the king of terrors, as may render his grim visage and fearful addresses so familiar to us, as that our thoughts may be beforehand accustomed to the manner of his approaches; with what an army of diseases he is wont to lay siege to the fort of our life; how, in despite of all the resistances of nature, he plants and quarters them in our veins or our arteries, our stomachs or our bowels, and from thence infests us all over with continual anguish and pain; how, when he hath tired and exhausted us with his continued batteries, and worn out our strength with a succession of wearisome nights to sorrowful days, he at last storms the soul out of all the outworks of

nature, and forces it to retire into the heart; and how, when he hath marked us for dead with a baptism of clammy and fatal sweats, he summons our weeping friends to assist him, to grieve and vex us with their parting kisses and sorrowful adieus; and how at length, when he is weary of tormenting us any more, he rushes into our hearts, and with a few mortal pangs and convulsions tears the soul from thence, and turns it out to seek its fortune in the wide world of spirits; where it is either seized on by devils, and carried away to their dark prisons of sorrow and despair, there to languish out its life in a dismal expectation of that dreadful day, wherein it must change its bad condition for a worse; or be conducted by angels to some blessed abode, there to remain in unspeakable pleasure and tranquillity, till it is crowned with a glorious resurrection. Now since it is most certain that we must all one time or other experience these things, but most uncertain how soon; how much doth it concern us to think of them beforehand, and to forecast such provisions and preparations for them, as that whensoever they happen, we may not be surprised. For besides that the frequent meditation of death will familiarize its terrors to us, so that whenever it comes, our minds, which have been so long accustomed to converse with it, will be much less startled and amazed at it; besides that it will wean us from the inordinate desire and over eager prosecution of the things of this world, which, as I told you before, are the snares with which our vices do too often entangle us; besides all this, I say, it will put us upon laying in a store of spiritual provisions against that great day of expense. For he that often considers the dreadful

approaches, the concomitant terrors, and the momentous issues and consequents of death, must be strangely stupified, if he be not thereby vigorously excited to forearm and fortify himself with all those graces and defences that are necessary to render it easy, safe, and prosperous.

VIII. To our final perseverance in the Christian warfare, it is also necessary, that in order to the putting ourselves into a good posture to die, we should discharge our consciences of all the relics and remains of our past guilt: for so we are commanded to take care that our hearts be sprinkled from an evil conscience, Heb. x. 22. and to hold faith and a good conscience, 1 Tim. i. 19. and to make this our rejoicing, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world, 2 Cor. i. 12. in a word, to live in all good conscience, Acts xxiii. 1. and to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men, Acts xxiv. 16. which, though they are general duties, do necessarily imply this particular, that we should very nicely and curiously examine our consciences, those faithful records and registers of our actions, and wherever we find the least item of an uncancelled guilt, immediately cross it out by a hearty sorrow for, and moral revocation of it. For notwithstanding we may have in the general repented of all our past sins; yet there are some sins, which notwithstanding we react no more, do leave a lasting guilt upon the mind, which nothing can cancel but our actual revoking and unsinning them. As supposing that I have heretofore, either by my bad counsels or example, seduced other men into wicked courses; it is not sufficient for the expiation of my